Yes, we have a map of all the keys and values related to the connections on the board.

We are planning to use a PAK-VIa (http://www.awce.com/pak6.htm_ to read a standard PS2 keyobard input, which is then passed by RS232 to a PIC that creates emulated pulses for the Triac.

Cheers

Dave

Simon If it is anyhting like the Orac one then the disc consist of black and reflected patches arranged in binary coded decimal format (BCD) and 3 opto sensors reading the 3 tracks. Try looking at - http://www.denfordata.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=396 and images 308 and 309 to give you an idea of the el...

Bert Yup, all you should need is to find the step & dir pins. These will most likely be on pins 2-9. Removing the breakout out baord is dangerous as if you do maker a wiring mistake - you could kill the PC. First thing is when you power the Orac up do the motors lock solid. probably the easiest way ...

Hi Bert i have no experience with cnc machines or cad/cam programs so i can only use it under manual control via mach 3 Bert, you don't need CAD/CAM software to use the CNC setup. Forst thing you need to do is understand G-code and M-code - have a look through the Mach3 Manual online, but it really ...

Hello Just a quikc update, we have cracked the keyboard matrix and can now access all the keys again, currently we are doing this using two headers and connecting jumpers across so it's not ideal, but it works! We are now looking at replacement keyboard options. Our current idea is to use a syandard...

I've seen those boards and they look very good. I used Peters board as there was no other on the market at the time and Peter is great with tech support etc. One thing to check is that they are fully isolated units. A lot of the parajust, brown Pestell etc unit have their earth volatge around +130V ...

Bert

What help do you need?

There is also a parajust manual -

viewtopic.php?t=462&highlight=parajust

Go Mach !!! You get such a degree of customisation and support that you will never get with the Heidenhain. Also if you do hit a problem you can often delve into the inner workings of mach and find the cause. You can see the details of my Starturn conversion here - http://www.denfordata.com/bb/viewt...

Hi Matt Thanks for your help, it is great. Our guys have currently stripped the membrane keypad into its component layers and have traced each track which has shown up an interesting method of connecting some of the lines. When i left yesterday they had just made a breakout board and were using pin ...

Hello Thanks for the offer of help. You should be able to get into the keyboard test by turning the machine on, then BEFORE turning the drives on and running abs datum, press the CCLW key. You should not get a blank display with a hexadecimal number on. As you press each key, this number should chan...

Hello again Sorry to bother you guys again but I was wondering if anyone could help me with my last request. If anyone would be kind enough to sit down in front of their PNC triac for 10 minutes, go into the keybaord test mode, then write down a list of the keys pressed against the codes displayed o...

Hello everyone A few weeks ago I posted about the problems we were having with out poor Triac at work. Well, our electrical guys did a fantastic job and got the monitor working again. But so far no luck on the keyboard. One of our electrical whizzes has stripped the membrane keyboard and is currentl...

Hi I stripped the lube system on our machien a few years ago. I remember the unit was made by a manufacturer who still sold the same lubricator and had data sheets available on their website - unfortunatly I cannot remember the name at the moment. The lubricator is powered by a small AC or DC motor,...

As far as I am aware, the motors on all the axes are the same. The X and Y motors are however powered by a 2A SD2 driver, while the Z axis is a 3A SD3 unit. Have you tried taking the covers off to get to the Y or Z motors to try and get the part codes from them?

Cheers

Dave

Hey Ben

I use a digispeed on my starturn to control my spindle motor, should work fine. With regards to the encoders, they have onboard circuitry that give a nice 5v TTL waveform, hook it straight up to your breakout board then into Mach, it is surprisingly easy.

Cheers

Dave

Hello everyone, long time no see. Having not been on the forum for a while I am returning as our poor Triac at work is feeling a bit under the weather at the moment. Firstly, we have lost the use of the Y+, 4,5 and 6 keys on the kepyad. Our electronic guys have changed all the chips relevant to the ...

Are you trying to send strings of characters, or a single character? When I wrote some software to work with the Triac a while back. I had major problems talking to it. Now Baud rates should sort everything out, but I couldn't get them to! In the end I had to put a software loop delay between the se...

Sweep

Why not sort out a second PC andrecord the traffic on the RS232 lines?

I did this about 5 years ago when working on some equipment.

For Example -
http://www.lammertbies.nl/comm/cable/RS ... nitor.html
http://www.aggsoft.com/serial-port-moni ... onitor.htm

Cheers

Dave

I thought the Orac's all had their own control system and it was the Starrturn 4 and 8 that relied on having extenral computers connected?